


The Enchanted Snake

by Vesperchan



Series: Tumblr Shorts [23]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Aarne-Thompson type 425A, F/M, OOC characters, The Enchanted Snake, birthday fic, fairytale, the search for the lost husband
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27770653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vesperchan/pseuds/Vesperchan
Summary: Happy (belated) Birthday my friend! Hope you enjoy. :)
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Orochimaru
Series: Tumblr Shorts [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1228031
Comments: 8
Kudos: 99





	The Enchanted Snake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SpeedDemon315](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpeedDemon315/gifts).



In a time already long past, when it was still of use to cast a spell, there was a young girl who lost her mother. This was unfortunate enough in an of itself, but her misfortune was only aggravated by the fact that her father married a woman shortly thereafter and cast the remnants of his old marriage out to make room for the new lady of the house and her sons.

Sakura didn’t mind the change in her circumstances as much as some thought she would. She was taken in by her wet nurse and raised in the count’s forest where she was free to hunt and harvest as she wished while others were barred.In the safety of their forest, her wet nurse taught her well and raised Sakura to be both brave and cunning.

Such bravery and cunning would have served her father well.

At the encouragement of his wife he indulged beyond he means and ended up owing a great debt to a neighbor, one he could not pay. However, the neighbor was not interested in riches or golds. He could not be bargained with for spice or silks. Instead, he wanted a wife for his monstrous son; then and only then would the debt be repaid.

And that is where the story begins.

“Baba, what truth is there to this story of the count’s son being a monster?” Sakura asked while feeding the hens. “What is a monster anyway?”

“Not the kind you are used to, my child,” Chiyo answered. “Your father is the true mother here, but he is human flesh and human bone. What you have been promised to is not made of either.”

Sakura stopped feeding the hens and looked back at the wrinkled old woman who once dressed herself as a wet nurse and swore herself to a child who should have inherited more than bruises and bare feet. Sakura’s mother had been a princess from the glass city far on the edges of the empire where magic was still more than a dream. Chiyo was one of the only ones who remembered that.

“What of the stories where sacrifices have been found for the bastard?”

“He has been fed human blood, yes, but that will not be your fate,” Chiyo answered. “You’re done with the hens now, give me the tin and go find your boots. I want you to enter the forest for me.”

Sakura did as she was told, dressing herself for a trek and binding her bloodied feet before sticking them into her boots. It was a waste to wear through boots when it was only once every other year that money came for her to buy new ones. Little could still damage the soles of her feet now.

At the door Chiyo had a bag with enough bread for three days in it, as well as a skin of wine. “You’ll be going to the base of the mountains, beyond your father’s forest. There sit beside the gravestone we made for your mother and do not return until you receive her blessing. You will know when you have. Whatever grace she has left for you will be what you need to survive.”

“It would have been better if he just forgot about me. I was doing well enough here on my own,” Sakura grumbled. She took the food and added it to her satchel below the longbow and quiver.

“Even if he had his wife wouldn’t. She needs some way to pay for her son's follies.”

Sakura didn’t say anything but her face fell when she remembered she had a number of step and half brothers who she had never met and only knew as people who hated the idea of her. But it made sense for her father to love them more than a daughter who haunted him with the same eyes of his long dead wife.

Sakura set off on foot and trekked long for a day and a night before coming to the grave made of stone where Chiyo and her had dug a grave for the body of Sakura’s mother. The tomb under the count’s manor was empty and he had never noticed. At the headstone Sakura sat and meditated as Chiyo instructed her to. She thought of her mother, of what little she could recall from the years when she was only a small child. When it began to rain she pulled up her cloak and bowed her head to the headstone.

In the morning she woke and saw between her knees in the dirt a trio of oddly colored acorns. One was copper, the other silver, the last gold. This was the last of her mother’s grace and likely the last magic of a princess from the glass city. She had no idea what the acorns meant or what they would do but she took them with her and returned.

But her cabin in the middle of the woods was not as she left it. She emerged from the forest proper, dirt and weary from the elements to find Chiyo surrounded by men in silver armor and bearing the mark of her father’s army. It was her escort. The time she had to prepare herself for the unlucky union, was apparently, at an end.

“I thought we were picking up a bride or some sad hen girl. What is this?” the first knight mocked to his companion.

“What woman has arms like a boar?” the other knight laughed.

Sakura smoothly rolled her longbow off her back and fit it with a pair of arrows then bent it back impossibly before letting both feathered shafts sail through the air and graze their silvered armor. Their laughter cut short just as Sakura fit another pair of arrows to the bowstring.

“What noble knight mocks their charge? The count is a fool of a man in more ways than one,” Sakura warned darkly. With her bowstring bent back far enough, the lines of strength stood out along her body. She had not studied the art of archery lightly during her exile, and her body was a testimony to that.

The first knight reached for his sword but Sakura spoke before he could make that mistake. “I didn’t miss the first time and I won’t the second. Don’t make the mistake that’ll cost you your eye, knight.”

“We’ve been instructed to bring in the daughter of our count. Are you her?” the other knight asked.

“And if I was I would go with you willingly, but not until I can confirm that my wet nurse is well and you have left her unbothered. Any ill treatment will be returned, double.”

“We have no quarrel with an old woman,” the first knight complained.

Sakura saw behind them was a horse tacked and saddled with a lady’s side saddle. She let her bowstring go lax and flipped the arrows around to return them to her quiver. “Retrieve my arrows and I’ll make things easy for you,” she called out before heading inside the hut. She found Chiyo by the hearth knitting.

“You are back earlier than expected.”

“Liar, you gave me just enough food for exactly how long it took.” Sakura pulled up a stool and sat on it while she refilled her skin of wine from the table. She nodded to the needlework. “Is that for me?”

“Just one more protection.”

Sakura hesitated, recognizing the magic being sewed into the pattern. “I’ll need it. Mother gave me three acorns. It’s not a good sign.”

“I’ve seen his face in the fire. He is as they say, a monster and a snake. I’ve seen the den where ten hundred pale brothers swarm and the dark kingdom where he was bound. He may be trapped in the duke’s cellar now, but that is by choice. Should you see this marriage to its completion you will need this and all your wits.”

Sakura chuckled. “Good thing I’ve never forgotten those. How long until you are finished and I might leave?”

“Tell them to change your saddle and I’ll be ready before any of them.”

Sakura leaned out the open front door and shouted at them to switch out her saddle. When they asked _‘with what’_ since they didn’t have a spare and there was no such spare at Chiyo’s, Sakura just pointed to one of theirs. There was an argument that ended up in a wrestling match, bruises, and Sakura changing out the saddle of the injured knight herself. When she returned indoors Chiyo was indeed done with her yarn work.

“It’s a doll.”

“Wear her on your belt, foolish child, and don’t patronize me,” Chiyo chastised. “I’ll not do you any more favors. The rest is up to you.”

And it was true, not because Chiyo was unwilling but because this was her limit. It was no longer her story and the debt Chiyo owed Sakura’s mother was twice over repaid.

Sakura arrived late in the evening at Jiraya’s home. She was bathed and dressed twice over when the maids assigned to her realized what they had set out was nothing that suited a woman of her stature. One of them ran to where the first wife’s things were locked away and brought back the chest. It took two maids and a great deal of effort, but they managed to pry the seven locks off the trunk and aired out the robes from the glass city and rebated Sakura in milk for her skin.

Tsunade had been an impressive woman with strength Sakura seemed to mirror. The cloaks and dresses left by the first wife complemented Sakura’s strong frame and broad shoulders. Sakura was pleased with how easy it was to move in the new things and wondered why more of the current fashion trends seemed to favor corset and bodices meant to hurt and harm.

“Your father has asked he not be present for this,” the head maid explained that evening. She looked nervously down at her feet. “He was not happy to hear we opened her box. If you wore something else he would escort you-”

“Absolutely not. If he’s too afraid of the vision of his dead wife in his daughter he can stay afraid with his booze and his women. I have little care for a father so incompetent,” Sakura answered from beneath the hands of another maid who was busy braiding Sakura’s hair back.

“A-as you wish my lady.”

The maid bowed and ran off the way she had come. Another maid reached into the bottom of the trunk and complained about the lack of accessories and jewels before removing a decorated dagger with a wicked curve that meant it was for more than just show. Sakura asked for it and the maid helped Sakura add it to the dress’ studded belt. On the opposite side Sakura fixed the jeweled pouch and added her mother’s three acorns to it.

There was a carriage to take her before dusk could finish rolling into the neighbor’s lands. From the windows Sakura looked out and saw the white hair of who she assumed was her father, watching from the high places of his house while a woman hung on his arm. His face was stone like as he watched Sakura and she hated him in that instant. She hoped he knew that if she survived she would not leave him to his spoils. The wife pulled him away from the window and let the traps fall closed just as Sakura’s carriage lurched.

For a neighbor it still took several hours to reach the Duke’s manor, and it was a darling night when Sakura finally emerged from the carriage. It was a full moon night and all the better to see by, since the duke insisted his son be married in darkness where others might not perceive him.

Duke Sarutobi was an odd man.

The knights who greeted her carriage led her with the utmost care and respect even if their silvered visors were contorted like the masked faces of a beast or demon. Sakura didn’t mind as long as they were respectful.

In spite of the late hour there were still people who hugged the darkness and watched from a distance as Sakura’s procession was led to the tree of vows in the back of the duke’s vast estate. There a priest and the duke himself stood waiting. Sarutobi stepped up to accept Sakura’s hands and kissed both her knuckles.

“Poor child, you’ve been so brave so far to marry my wicked son. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me for something you connected to,” Sakura coldly replied, pulling her hands from his. “I am not doing you a favor, I am repaying a debt that was never mine.”

Sarutobi watched her a moment more before slowly nodding. He was an old man, far older than Sakura’s own father. His face was wrinkled and tanned from long years in the sun, but he had no heir to take over the vast territory after his death apart from his monstrous son, so he had stayed in power all this time. He was dressed like the father of the groom should be, in honoring robes and furs to keep him warm outside during the late hour.

“Still, let this wicked man thank you for whatever role you play here tonight. I can only do this much,” Sarutobi admitted.

Sakura looked away from him and glared at the altar. “Where is my husband? I thought the groom was supposed to receive the bride, not his father. Who am I here to marry?”

“He… didn’t think you would come. I will call him now,” Sarutobi chuckled nervously. He waved to the nearby guards and one of them produced a ram’s horn to blow into. It was deep and a far reaching sound that shook the trees in the distance.

Sakura accepted the air and stepped up to the altar, adjusting the furs around her face that helped keep the dark summer’s chill at bay. It wasn’t a cold night, but every wind passed through her like it was entitled to the chill of her bones.

Sakura felt her gut roll and turned in time to see the long length of something white emerge from the shadows. When she turned she saw the head of the long serpent already sending the opposite end of the altar.

Sakura bit back the curse when the horned head of the serpent rose up and she had to bend her head back to see what loomed over her. It-he didn’t speak, but when it looked to the priest there was enough intention in that gaze to spit the holy man to action.

The rites came quickly, and through it all the white serpent didn’t look away from Sakura once, even when she set her eyes on other things she always came back to find the snake son fixated on her. When it came time for them to speak their vows the priest tried to ask Sakura first but the son snapped at him and the priest almost fell back on his ass.

“Bind me as well, priest,” the son threatened. Behind him, the long coil of his snake body began to compress as if preparing to strike.

“Then you-you swear loyalty to the lady until the end of her days?”

“I swear loyalty until the end of her days,” the snake echoed, calming down. He settled back into position and the raised ends of his horns nearly flattened back into his skull now that his agitation had passed. He seemed more at ease then before the ceremony even started.

“And you my lady, do you swear loyalty until the end of his days?”

“Until his days end, yes I swear it,” Sakura repeated, glaring across the altar at the monster that would be her husband.

“Then let you be bound,” the priest said before pouring the ceremonial wine into the basin between them. Sakura bent first to drink from it and then her husband, the man she didn’t even know the name of. When he lifted his head the red wine that dripped from his chin was as dark as blood and she wondered if she could match him with her own fierceness.

“Then your wedding chambers-”

Before Sarutobi could reach out to escort Sakura, the tail of the white snake slithered out and then slapped like a whip, separating her from his father.

“I will take her there, old man.”

“Orochimaru, please.” But Sarutobi didn’t make any other attempt to reach for Sakura.

Cut off from her father in law, Sakura touched the side of the serpent and he shivered, whipping his head back around to stare at where she touched him before lowering his head to her eye level.

“Come wife,” he encouraged before turning around and leading her back into the dark forest.

The path they traversed was well worn, more so by the underbelly of his snake form than human feet, but soon Sakura saw why. Orochimaru led her to the mouth of a well carved cave with reliefs in the rock face of men and women suffering. The details of humans on fire and impaled harked back to images of the doors to hell but she was not shaken.

She followed him down the shallow ramp, seeing the lights up ahead. Along the walls human hands had smoothed down the rough stone and made alcoves in patterned shapes for no purpose other than decoration. After a time her husband pulled ahead and began to circle the far end of the room with the most light. In the center of the room was a pit filled with pillows and cushions that was deep and wide enough for a snake as large as Orochimaru. Above them was a cluster of raw quartz lit with a simple enchantment.

“Will you run?” Orochimaru asked.

“Will you eat me?” Sakura countered.

“Not tonight.”

Sakura smirked. “But there is no promise for tomorrow, is there?”

“The others did not keep their promises either. I have bound myself to you as you have to me. Three nights you shall stay with me and not see the face of the sun or moon. This I ask of you and in turn I swear not to touch my fangs to your skin.”

Sakura absently rested her hand on the edge of her belt, next to her dagger. “I’m not sure you would be so successful.”

Something of her words seemed to amuse him. “Will you rest, wife?”

Sakura glanced back the way she came and then stepped down into the pillowed recess. She tossed off her boots and left them at the edges but kept the rest of her wedding dress on.

“Is there a reason it has to be three nights?” she challenged while remembering her mother’s blessing of three acorns.

“Isn’t it always three in the old stories? Sleep now. You are a creature ill suited to the night.” At his words the end of his tail came up and gently brushed against the side of her face, pushing back a stray strand of pink behind her ear. “Sleep here.”

Sakura found a blanket between the pillows and pulled it out, but before she could bundle herself up, Orochimaru followed her down and began to coil around her. She almost moved away but he made a sound of displeasure and lowered his head so far that the ridges where his horns should be went smooth. That was enough to let her know he didn’t want her to leave, so she readjusted herself and pulled up her blankets to sleep.

“No matter what you hear at night, please do not leave me.”

Sakura didn’t say anything but closed her eyes and slept.

Orichimaru was too excited to sleep. It was nearly daybreak before he finally found it in himself to rest with his eyes closed. It was exciting to watch his new wife.

She was different from the other brides in more ways than just one. For starters, she was the only one who had come so far without crying. There was actually no sign she would start to cry either. She wasn’t happy with the union, obviously, but she didn’t seem the type to distress over spilled milk.

She was very beautiful but not in the way the other brides had been beautiful. He was a beast so he appreciated different things and didn’t care much for how thin their waist or wrists would be. He cared little for their coloring or the shape of their nose or lips, but he was always struck by the way their eyes would look out at the rest of the world. Sakura saw things without flinching and there was a wall between her and the rest of the world. Still, her eyes were dazzling in their own way. They gleamed like glass and he supposed that was because her mother was a princess from the glass city. That meant Sakura might also have her own magics to be weary for.

How exciting!

She also came to the wedding wearing a dagger instead of expensive silks. She hadn’t even bothered with a veil. He wondered if the dagger was ceremonial but guessed not when he inspected it closer. The curve was there for a reason other than decoration. Did she know how to use it? She was strong, but what would that amount to against something as massive as himself. His scales were strong like steel and his fangs were twice as long as her tiny dagger.

Oh, but he’d do nothing to hurt her on his own-so long as she stayed indoors. The first night had no temptation so it would not count, but how would she fare the other days and nights? She’d not want to waste her time sleeping for more than a day. Tomorrow he would show her the quartz halls and the pools where she could be pampered. That would entertain her for a day, and then she could sleep at night in his coils. The day after that would be the real challenge.

He tried not to, but new hope bubbled within him and he had to fight to keep it from making him giddy. He had always hoped to be free but now he felt-for the first time-he had a true and real chance at it…and with the most alluring of all his ill fated brides. If he had to pick a favorite it would easily be Sakura.

What sort of candies did she like? What would she want for breakfast in the morning? She looked like she could eat a lot so he should make sure he had enough food for the both of them. What of drinks? She seemed to enjoy their ceremonial wine enough, but maybe something sweeter would suit her more. Her voice was sweet. Was that a coincidence? Did it matter?

He would have time in the morning to make sure things were perfect for the both of them. He really didn’t want this time to follow the same pattern.

When Sakura woke it was to the smell of buttered bread and jam soaked pastries, of cooked meats and a deep dish of colorful eggs mixed up with so many other different vegetables. It was more food than she had ever seen at once on the same table.

Half of her husband’s tail was still around her but the rest of him was eating something out of sight. When she shifted against his body she heard his eating stop. A moment later his face back into view, low to the ground and clean of any predicted carnage.

“Wife, is breakfast to your liking?”

Sakura pushed up onto her feet and balanced across the pillows and cushions until she was at the edge of the pit. His tail offered her some support as she climbed up and padded across the thick rugs to the table filled with breakfast.

“Is this all only for me?” she asked in slack jawed wonder.

“I am sated. Eat as you please and do not worry for what you may leave behind.”

“Where did it come from?” Sakura asked with her hands already reaching for a plate to fill full of food.

Orochimaru watched her a moment more before answering, seemingly pleased with how eagerly she dug in. “I am given all I wish. This is nothing to me. When you are finished, strike the table and the leftovers will return to my mother’s land.”

“Your mother?” Sakura swallowed her mouthful down with the sweet wine and then wiped at her mouth with the inside of her wrist. “Who is she? Sarutobi wasn’t married I thought.”

“Oh no, he wasn’t, but he was quite the adventurer. He had relations in payment for favors my mother gave him. The queen of the _Amphithere_.”

Sakura paused, recognizing the term. “Aren’t the amphithere…huge dragons creatures with wings.”

“They resemble snakes with wings more than dragons, but the lineage supports a history of close relations to dragons, warms, and wyverns along with others.”

Sakura turned around in her seat and faced Orochimaru. “Hang on a minute. Did your dad do the do with a…with an _amphithere_ and that’s how he came to be your father? It wasn’t one of those, ‘ _oh my son was born a monster because I messed up and didn’t follow basic instructions?_ ’ You’re not shitting me, right?”

“Yes, my father fucked a monster. It’s not public knowledge though so please keep that to yourself for his sake. He’s not embarrassed about it but the rest of us are.” 

“…Orochimaru…” He perked up when she called his name and inched his head a little closer. “You’re not…are you expecting me to…be...like your dad…?”

“Oh, no!” He recoiled and the tail that was inching closer snapped back to the opposite side of the room like he was afraid of burning her. “ Not-not like that, not at all. I wouldn’t- I ah, my…three days, I just ask that for three days and three nights you stay here out of the light of sun or moon and then you can…if you wish we can have this discussion then.”

“What happens in three days?”

“I can not say. I am bound against speaking such truth.”

Sakura took another bite of her food. “That’s fine. I think I can figure it out on my own. No need to mention it again, I’ll promise to do as you wish and stay out of sight. Instead, I’ll ask you where I can go to wash and dress myself if I’m to be trapped here for the next three days.”

“When you are finished I’ll show you all the places you can go,” he promised, face still pressed low to the ground.

And true to her word, Sakura stayed beneath the earth with her snake husband. At night she woke when she heard the sounds of dancing and revelry. There was beautiful music she almost was tempted to seek out but she remembered Orochimaru’s words. Still, when she asked him at night what that noise was his only answer, spoken like stolen words were, ‘ _you may join them if you wish_.’

She didn’t.

The next night they came again and then the third night they returned. In the morning when she awoke Orochimau was positively preening with his horn and the skin flaps behind his ears flapping in excitement. He almost reminded her of a kid waiting for yule presents.

“You’re like a child. How old are you anyway?” Sakura teased, already knowing the answer. They had spoken often over the last three nights and two days. This third day was no different. With nowhere else to go they found entertainment in each other.

“Just because you are a year older than I am doesn’t mean I am a child,” Orochimaru grumbled.

“I thought you’d be older since you’re so huge.”

“I’d grow even more than this with time. I don’t know how much but I know I’m not done since I’m a white snake.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked.

“Supposedly I am immortal as long as I keep this body. Otherwise if someone were to kill and eat me they would gain a long life or even immortality if they were able to consume all of me before my body rotted away.”

Sakura paused in the middle of eating her midday meal. “You’d live forever if you stayed a snake? Why would you want to give that up?”

Orochimaru wriggled the way he would when he didn’t want to answer her. “What’s the point of living forever if you don’t have happiness. I have no hands to hold and no…well, I can’t be as I wish I were for the sake of a wife.”

Sakura might have been embarrassed by the implication but if he was embarrassed it meant she could tease him about it. Sometimes his white scales turned a faint pink right beneath his eyes. It was hard to catch but she had seen it more than once so now she knew where to look for it.

Shouting interrupted her teasing and from under her hands she felt Orochimaru tense. His horns grew out from his skull and he hissed. “Intruders.” He reached up with his face and brushed past her cheek before passing her for the entrance to their cave. “I will return shortly. Don’t leave for anything.”

It was a simple enough request, but when the noises only grew from outside Sakura couldn’t help but draw as close as the boundary line, safe outside the sun’s reach. She listened and heard the fight. There were so many voices, more than just three or four. They had weapons too, she heard the clang of their swords and shields, the grunts of their blunted impacts. Then-

“I got it! Cut it there, under its horns. It’s bleeding boys!”

“Get him now!”

“Together!”

Sakura felt numb as she recognized Orochimaru’s screams of anguish. He was howling in pain, making sounds she had never heard before but still somehow knew. She touched the dagger at her side and then the acorns.

What was she to do?

There was a heavy impact and the men cried out in agony as one. Someone screamed for his companion and another howled in agony.

“He’s lagging, press the advantage. We can take him!”

“Hurry, we can do this!”

But there were more screams and among them she could hear Orochimaru’s. Then there was a heavy rumble as something massive crashed back down to earth. Sakura covered her mouth with her hand and gasped when she realized it was the sound of her felled husband. Far fewer voices were left but she recognized the thrill of victory.

They had killed her husband.

Sakura forsook the warnings and ran out into the dusk with her dagger drawn. Once it left the sheets it grew twice as long and sliced through the first rogue knight, felling his head from his shoulders before he could even turn around to see her there.

Sakura screamed, seeing red when she approached the open, bleeding body of her husband. One of the knights turned and faltered at the sight of a woman, but that was his mistake. He lost his head just like the other, leaving one more on his feet. 

The last knight met her blow for blow but he wasn’t expecting her swings to be as strong as they were, and she overpowered him easily, pushing him down and dragging her blade across his face and then his neck.

When she was finished she was splattered with their warm blood and surrounded by twice as many bodies. Turning around she saw the body of her husband, barely alive, badly wounded.

“You broke your word.”

Sakura turned and saw a beautiful woman with dark hair and yellow eyes. She held a birdcage up and from within a light began to gather. Sakura cried out when she saw Orochimaru’s body decompose into a light that was sucked into the cage. A moment later he was a badly wounded songbird the woman closed the cage on.

“Give him back to me. He’s hurt.”

“And only his mother’s people may tend to him now. You are not among them, oath breaker.”

“That’s not fair, he would have died if I didn’t arrive.”

“Be as it may, a word broken is still broken.”

“Fuck your damn rules. I don’t care. Give me back my husband.” Sakura reached for the woman but couldn’t grasp her when she tried. Sakura lunged again but the woman continued to side step.

“You’ve no claim left to the snake son of our queen, return to your home and remember this like a dream. You are free from this bond.”

“I don’t want that, I want my husband,” Sakura cried again, purposefully missing when she lunged a third time. She ended up falling on her side and stayed there, gasping heavily as the woman drew backwards and turned away. Like magic, she was gone in the next instance.

Good thing Sakura had managed to tuck Chiyo’s yarn doll into the woman’s belt.

Now all she had to do was wait.

Hours later the doll came back, but before it could reach her it had unwound itself into a single thread. Sakura picked up one end of and followed it the entire distance. It took half a night but before the witching hour could ring true she found the lair of the amphithere. Down she descended, remembering her wet nurse’s vision.

_“I’ve seen his face in the fire. He is as they say, a monster and a snake. I’ve seen the den where ten hundred pale brothers swarm and the dark kingdom where he was bound. He may be trapped in the duke’s cellar now, but that is by choice. Should you see this marriage to its completion you will need this and all your wits.”_

Sakura looked to the side as she continued her downward trek, and spotted a dozen or so smaller pale snakes slithering up along the far walls into cracks and over obstacles. She didn’t see ten hundred yet, but she didn’t doubt she’d come across more the further she went. Chiyo was rarely wrong.

At the end of the path there was a spiraling set of stairs that emptied into a pit where there lay a massive female amphithere with feathered wings and a crown of horns that curled twice over before ending in sharp upward points. Among her writhed a swarm of pale gray worms, likely babies that would grow up to be as big as Orochimaru.

The kin of dragons looked up when Sakura stepped onto the first step of the staircase. The mother chuckled a dark sounding rumbling but didn’t say or move until Sakura was down at the center of the pit. Snakes swarmed at her ankles, chirping for her to marry them next, to ‘pick’ them. Sakura ignored them and stood in front of the queen.

“You’ve trekked far, two legs,” the ancient queen rumbled. “Now you are under my mountain. What for?”

“I’ve come for my husband,” Sakura boldly declared.

“You’ve no claim to him as you are, oath breaker. He is wounded now and I will not hand him back to you, brave as you are.”

“I am not so easily swayed. My word may have broken but his to me is still there. Maybe I am no longer his bride by rights, but he is my husband still. I demand to make good on this claim and will meet your challenges for that right.”

“My challenges?”

“By right, if I can defeat you three times over what I want is mine.”

“But if you fail…what then, two legs?” the queen teased.

“You eat me, simple.”

The queen’s golden eyes sparkled with delight and she roared with laughter. “Indeed! I am swayed, two legs. Let us test your wits then.”

The whole cavern rumbled with her laughter and on the walls and floors her gray and black colored sons and daughters writhed in excitement.

“Then, a test of skills, a test of wit, and a test of wills…” The mother snapped her jaws and from the great height of the cavern a dove descended. “This creature has come at my call, but its blood is sacred. Kill it so we might make a cure from what is spilled.”

Sakura stepped back and stared up at where the bird flew, too far out of reach. There was no way she could reach it with her sword so she put it away and felt for the first of her three acorns. She pulled it free and cracked it open before her fingers. There was a flash of white light, but when she looked again there was an impressive longbow with three arrows left to it. Some of the snakes laughed at how massive the bow was, but Sakura knew anything smaller would never reach the heights she needed it to.

“You only have three shots before I eat you,” the queen teased.

“I only need one,” Sakura answered. She fit the arrow to the string and pulled back far enough to bend the bow. Her back and arm strained as she contorted to shoot straight up, but when she released it was a true shot that struck the sacred dove clean through. It cried out and pitched before tumbling down to the platform where Sakura ran to catch it.

The snakes around her ankles chittered in excitement, more begging to be her new husband, but Sakura ignored them all in favor of showing off her kill to the queen.

“That is one of three. Now your wits will be what saves or dooms you. Riddle me this…answer three of three if you wish to free my son.” The face of the queen loomed close. “Better old than young; the healthier it is, the smaller it will be…what am I?”

“A wound,” Sakura answered on reflex. She had suffered enough wounds herself to know they were better old than young. The more healed the smaller they became.

“Very good…Names give power, Magic to control. But what is broken, by naming it?”

Sakura hesitated but then took a step forward. “The silence.”

The queen rumbled a breathy laugh and her wings stretched over all of them. “Well spoken little one, yet one more you must prove. _My body’s thin and slender and I grow shorter every day. You can use my single purpose, and I’ll be sure to lead the way. When I am placed upon a pastry then my life is soon to fade. What am I?_ Tell me what I speak of.”

Sakura took a step back and tried to decipher the meaning behind the queen’s words. It felt like something obvious, something Chiyo would tease her with. When the two of them would play riddles this one must have come up.

Sakura felt for the second acorn and it was smooth like temptation, so she cracked it open in her pocket and then pulled out what had been inside.

“A candle,” Sakura said at last, feeling sure. “It’s a candle.”

“Well of wit and well of skill, now let’s see if she will be well of wills,” the queen taunted before waving her massive white tail. The ground cracked and out of it crawled a fox made out of fire. It jumped around then paused when it spotted Sakura. “If you can kill this creature its blood will be the last thing my son needs to survive, but a firefox is not approached easily. You will suffer a sweltering heat before you’re even close. What shall you do?”

Sakura pulled out the last acorn and crushed it. Inside a white icicle tumbled free, stinging her palms as it began to spread frostbite magic. Sakura reacted on reflex and swallowed it whole, choking as her throat closed up and froze for a moment, before the magic melted into her. She was cold, so cold…she had swallowed a fragment of eternal winter. She didn’t know how stupid that was but it was what she needed and she trusted her mother thus far.

She picked up her sword and staggered forward. Like a furnace the heat the fire fox gave off would have killed a less man before he even drew close enough to strike it. The warmth was only comforting to Sakura though. She raised her blade and slashed once, twice, and on the last swing her blade swung true and found purchase in the next of the fire fox. Even after death it burned, its blood scorching the floor like lava.

“She did it, that’s three!” the voices around her cheered.

Sakura fell on one knee and turned to face her husband’s mother. She pulled the fox with her and threw it down at her feet. “That’s three,” Sakura coughed. “My husband…please.”

The queen moved backwards and underneath her belly was a recess in the stone where a much smaller Orochimaru slept, curled up and barely any bigger than Sakura herself. She cried out in distress and reached for him, realizing there were still wounds over his body.

“Cover him in the foxfire first and that will melt his old form away,” his mother urged.

Sakura did as she was instructed and winced only when the lava like blood hissed on contact with Orochimaru’s old skin. Her husband began to writhe as the old skin burned away and left him looking like the raw membrane of some ill formed creature.

“Now the blood of the dove!”

Sakura wasted no time and broke open the bird and covered her husband in its blood as well. There was a reaction this time as well, but instead of pain or horror, a beautiful human face emerged from the snake skin, turning towards Sakura and gasping for new air. Sakura ripen him free from the old skin and pulled him free, cradling him as the cavern around her cheered loudly.

Orochimaru’s mother chuckled fondly, slithering around to watch her son and daughter in law. “May he be worthy of you, two legs.”

Sakura wiped the excess skin from Orochimaru’s face and called his name. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open and he fumbled with his hands for something to hold.

“Sakura?”

“I came for you,” she laughed when she recognized the beautiful saffron color of his eyes. “Please don’t leave me again.”

He reached up to touch his face and grinned wide. “Never.”

And at the end nothing was lacking to their happiness until their death. In the night Sakura dreamed peacefully, completely unaware of how her husband watched her, proud of her and proud of himself for how skilled and worth his wife was. Yes, he was wise to have heeded the advice of his mother and lend all that silly gold to the fool Jiraya. What he had gained in return was far more valuable than anything the raw earth could give him. 

Really, he couldn't congratulate himself enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy (belated) Birthday my friend! Hope you enjoy. :)


End file.
